G. K. Chesterton - Man Quotes

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Pride consists in a man making his personality the only test, instead of making truth the test. The sceptic feels himself too large to measure life by the largest things; and ends by measuring it by the smallest thing of all.

G. K. Chesterton
A man who has lived and loved falls down dead and the worms eat him. That is Materialism if you like. That is Atheism if you like.

G. K. Chesterton
After the first silence the small man said to the other: 'Where does a wise man hide a pebble?'
And the tall man answered in a low voice: 'On the beach.'
The small man nodded, and after a short silence said: 'Where does a wise man hide a leaf?'
And the other answered: 'In the forest.'

G. K. Chesterton
A sober man may become a drunkard through being a coward. A brave man may become a coward through being a drunkard.

G. K. Chesterton
A change of opinions is almost unknown in an elderly military man.

G. K. Chesterton
And goodness only knowses
The Noselessness of Man.

G. K. Chesterton
A modern man may disapprove of some of his sweeping reforms, and approve others; but finds it difficult not to admire even where he does not approve.

G. K. Chesterton
Obviously if any actions, even a lunatic's, can be causeless, determinism is done for. If the chain of causation can be broken for a madman, it can be broken for a man.

G. K. Chesterton
The center of every man's existence is a dream. Death, disease, insanity, are merely material accidents, like a toothache or a twisted ankle. That these brutal forces always besiege and often capture the citadel does not prove that they are the citadel.

G. K. Chesterton
The true savage is a slave, and is always talking about what he must do; the true civilised man is a free man, and is always talking about what he may do.

G. K. Chesterton
There are two kinds of charlatan: the man who is called a charlatan, and the man who really is one. The first is the quack who cures you; the second is the highly qualified person who doesn't.

G. K. Chesterton
No man's really any good till he knows how bad he is, or might be...

G. K. Chesterton
Truths turn into dogmas the instant that they are disputed. Thus every man who utters a doubt defines a religion.

G. K. Chesterton
Marriage is a duel to the death which no man of honour should decline.

G. K. Chesterton
The whole secret of mysticism is this: that man can understand everything by the help of something he cannot understand.

G. K. Chesterton